Thinking on DPS tests for dire vs. soldiers, there is one small problem of debatable importance, which is the existence of poison and burning. DPS tests assume that all dodges affect all damage equally and are thus negligible, which is perfectly true in the case of stack conditions, but potentially incorrect for conditions that stack in duration. Depending on the method of applications, burning and poison can be maintained perfectly regardless of dodges, so long as it is reapplied every once in a while or has sufficient duration. For example, while dodging an engineer’s bleed or confusion stacks will reduce his DPS with those conditions by an equivalent amount to power attacks, it will not affect his DPS with burning at all so long as he can proc incendiary ammo soon enough to keep it up.
Not sure how much that would actually affect condi DPS tests at all, but something to think about for sure, as is the fact that I got a Dire ascended chest from a PvP chest and now have to make my engi condi regardless of my feelings on the matter.
On the bright side I’m going to be doing a lot more PvP.
Poisn and Burning do throw some interesting wrenches into the mix, but they are also a case where the condition user can actually limit their own damage output due to the stack limit. For example, if a necro scepter auto chain goes through 11 rotations with Lingering Curse and +100% poison duration, the 11th poison application never takes place. This is accounting for the time of the first stack to run its course as we build to the 9 stack limit.
The sustained damage that is limitless in application does most of the work.
I’m glad that we can agree that conditions are too strong in their current state and should be nerfed.
Thief dagger is a condition weapon now? Hold the presses, everyone, Thieves have been building wrong since launch. They should be running Rabid gear in those D/X builds!
“sustained damage”=/= “condition damage”. All condition damage is sustained, but not all sustained damage is conditions. For example, Ranger weapons are all primarily direct damage and can put out a constant stream of damage without much in the way of burst ability. This is sustained damage that is limitless in application, but condition cleanses are 100% ineffective against it (keep in mind that only one ranger auto can apply damaging conditions, and that is position-reliant).
If you die to someone with a burst build, but you avoided their burst, what killed you? Are you seriously going to say “their burst?” No, it was their sustained damage that they could put out, primarily through auto-attacks. Just because you avoided their burst does not mean they are totally without offensive ability now; it just means their offense is lower than before. They could spread out the skills involved in their burst and make them much harder to avoid, but that gives you far more opportunity to kill them before they kill you.
Niether: I kill them first :p
In seriousness, though, it’s usually heartseeker that kills me. The backstab puts a significant amount of damage on me, but I’ve got a very high EHP. It is actually the 1k autos that do most of the job, because I’m built to heavily resist burst, then Heartseeker to finish me off.
So yes, it is the sustained damage rather than the avoidable burst (though backstab and other stealth attacks are the least avoidable burst due to no telegraph) that does most of the work. The sustained damage that is limitless in application does most of the work.
This is true regardless of what build I’m running on my necro. I run Knight’s gear on my power build and a Rabid/Dire mix on my condition build. In both cases, I am very resilient to burst damage, so I very rarely die to actual burst.
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You can’t act like dodging attacks from power builds is the same as dodging attacks from condition builds because it’s simply not true. Yes, you can dodge Signet of Spite. Yes, I still have my condition removal available to me. However, my condition removal is finite whereas your ability to apply conditions to me is unlimited.
At least when I dodge a backstab or a warrior burst skill, it actually means something. When you dodge a power build’s key ability, you outplayed them and they know it. When you dodge against a condition build, they just go along with it and apply more conditions.
Actually, you can. You dodge a Warrior burst skill? Great, they can still hit you with any of a number of other skills. Their ability to hit you with direct damage is unlimited. You dodge a Power build’s big hit? They just go along with it and hit you more.
There is no difference in how to fight against them. You dodge a condition build’s big skill, you just out-played them, and they know it. However, just like most power builds, they keep going and try to get you with something else. In both cases, eventually, they will get you with something big and bring you down—assuming you don’t manage to do that first.
This is especially true with necros, who have no option but to stick in the fight until its end. If you avoid/mitigate a thief’s burst, they will usually back off and try again once their initiative/cooldowns are back. Necros can’t do that. If their big hits get negated, they have to continue the fight anwyway. Perhaps this is where your misconceptions come from? You think “oh, he’s not backing off, he must be dishing out a ton of damage” when in reality, it’s because backing off negates their purpose, or they are simply incapable of such a feat.
Condition builds are not some magical thing that you can’t defend against. You can do so pretty easily, in fact. But they require a different approach than many people think they take. Clearly, there are lots of people who have learned what approach this requires. Try becoming one of them.
I like how everyone who is defending conditions in this thread acts like anyone who is complaining is just some noob who wandered into WvW and doesn’t want to take condition removal. You act as if people who want conditions to be changed or nerfed are running around with pure glass builds with nothing in mind except uber leet maximum damages and that’s simply not the case.
Let me tell you a little secret: condition removal is mandatory; anyone who takes any aspect of WvW seriously, both zerging or roaming, realizes this. If a build can’t invest in condition removal through a heal skill or slotting certain utilities, you can bet your kitten that they’re going to take whatever traits they can find that give them access to condition removal.
Now, guess what? Condition removal is finite. You can always dodge a backstab and no class needs to invest in any traits, utilities, or weapon sets in order to have access to dodging. Furthermore, you’re allowed two dodges from the get-go and your endurance bar fills relatively quickly. However, with conditions, if your condition removal is on cooldown and they’re reapplied to you during that duration, you’re generally kittened.
It honestly baffles me that ANet would nerf critical damage when condition bunker builds have already been thriving in WvW and sPvP.
And thank you for proving my point. Nowhere did I say that people weren’t bringing condition removal. I stated that some folks have learned to use it correctly. Your own comments have clearly shown that you do not understand the correct approach to dealing with conditions.
Hint: just like power builds, condition builds have the big attacks to avoid. The difference is that if you fail to avoid an attack, you can still cleanse it to drastically reduce its effects.
For example, a condition necro has 5 skills (out of 20) to avoid under normal circumstances: Grasping Dead, Enfeebling Blood, Reaper’s Mark, Doom, and Signet of Spite. A stunbreak (which you should be carrying) can substitute for avoiding Doom and Reaper’s Mark. It’s not uncommon for them to be chained together, so your stunbreak can nullify two of those skills with good play. Signet of Spite on its own will not kill you, but it does make cleansing difficult. Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood do a lot of damage, but cleansing the bleed will not only remove their damage, but also quite a bit more from other skills (such as Mark of Blood and scepter auto).
So, we have the need for a stunbreak, one cleanse, and one dodge to nullify large amounts of damage from a condition necro. Given most builds are running these, doesn’t seem that difficult to handle now, is it? I run without stunbreaks even and never have an issue with another necro, though that is partly due to class design allowing me to survive immense amounts of condition damage without cleansing or avoiding. I would not reccommend it if you played any other class, and hard CC is a massive weakness for me.
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If this is intended, my question is if the clone-fears proc power-block.
Now that would be a REAL lockdown mesmer. Putting everything including auto-attacks on a 10s cd is kinda funny.
Don’t think auto-attacks can ever have an interrupt cooldown.
It’s called condi-cheese for a reason.
In the past they said the earth was flat therefor the earth was flat at that time.
Yeah, the WvW community’s views on conditions are completely comparable to the flat Earth model. Queue eye-roll.
Care to explain how it’s not?
I have seen people maining every single profession saying that conditions are fine as-is. Clearly, they aren’t all condition-build users themselves (given that Guardian conditions suck horridly and Eles aren’t a whole lot better). These people have learned what condition applications to dodge, how to use their cleanses properly, or recognize that weakness to conditions is simply a tradeoff they made with their build, as they did not take the options they had available. These represent the more learned players, as they took the time to learn.
Condition builds are not some magical thing that you can’t defend against. You can do so pretty easily, in fact. But they require a different approach than many people think they take. Clearly, there are lots of people who have learned what approach this requires. Try becoming one of them.
I’m still waiting for Temple of Lyssa to be lost so I can get the trait. I refuse to buy them (since I’m still saving for my precursor).
Roaming tonight taught me that Path of Corruption is amazing. Always great to watch those guardians pop stability and aegis, then run around on fire.
It is hard to take your QQ seriously Ivalice, when you make inaccurate assumptions. From all I have seen posted in video comparison, and the skill to skill damage comparisons, as well as my own test, Direct damage builds only need one stat as well. Power. Exactly as you claim condition users need. So what is the problem?
you must be mistaking gw2 for some other game
direct damage builds require at least 2 stats precision and power however without crit damage it wont be theatening damage against heavily armored players
whereas condi builds just roll a finger around the keyboard slapping storms of conditions and destroying targets indiscriminetly cuz condi damage only needs 1 stat and ignores armor
Can I get incorrect answers for $1,000, Alex?
Here’s a fun fact: Condition builds need condition duration. With 0 condition duration, a necro wielding a scepter in Soldier’s gear actually out-damages one in Dire against 2600 armor. Necro scepter is a hard condition damage weapon with horrid power scaling, yet it needs 40% bleed duration and 25% poison duration just to scale as well with condition damage as it does with power.
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Well, latest update notes said they fixed a bug with pets/minions/summons scaling improperly in PvP. That should have resolved it.
Am I the only power Necro who doesn’t feel hurt by the Ferocity changes?
Can’t really comment, since I switched back to condition wanting to use the new traits. I doubt I would feel a large difference, but then again, I use primarily Knight’s gear.
It’s possible he didn’t change his gear from the default Battle/Accuracy sigils and Soldier’s amulet before jumping into a game.
Sounds like something got messed up on the Ferocity change. I don’t know if necro minions have similar WTF moments, but since there was a good amount of work done on related traits, my guess is no.
Here is a system i think would be better: Merge dmg stats so that power and crit and ferocity each buff direct dmg and condi dmg the same amount (somehow). Then have toughness apply to both. Having two different dmg types with their own mechanics is dumb imo.
Then everyone switches to Knight’s gear because it provides superb protection against everything while still allowing good damage.
No, condition damage needs to continue to ignore Toughness.
You only draw 1 condition per 3 seconds, no matter how many allies are in range.
At least Life Blast can’t be side-stepped. The thing is more accurate than a guided missile on its homing capability.
On a related note, Hemophilia’s effect on tooltips is bugged. It shows a +45% duration increase in bleeds when you equip the trait. It still only actually increases them by the intended 20%, however.
Never said they were nerfed. Someone earlier in the thread was under the impression that ANet actually updated Death Nova’s tooltip properly after the merge. Heck, the new Adept Minor shows it has a 15 second cooldown, despite the fact that would make no sense at all.
Both of the new minor traits came from our own suggestions. While I disagree with which one was chosen for master tier, they nevertheless were ideas put forth by the necro community.
The Necromancer trait Hemophilia (Curses II) is changing the tooltip duration of bleeds by +45%. Actual duration increase is the correct 20%.
Jagged Horror lifespan at level 80:
With Flesh of the Master: ~41 seconds
Without Flesh of the Master: ~28 seconds
Tested by going into WvW, killing an animal, then timing how long it lasted without healing or taking damage.
The cooldown on the Krait runes seems to be aimed at preventing Necros froum doubling-up on the activation with Summon Flesh Golem/Charge. That is the only elite skill that can be activated twice in such a short time period.
I think a thief with improvisation can be lucky and activate it also twice in a very short period.
There are thieves that run that trait?
The cooldown on the Krait runes seems to be aimed at preventing Necros from doubling-up on the activation with Summon Flesh Golem/Charge. That is the only elite skill that can be activated twice in such a short time period.
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1 condition from 1 ally every 3 seconds, starting 3 seconds after you enter Death Shroud. 600 range.
Okay support, but not worthy of Grandmaster status.
Only allows its own healing. Was pretty explicit in the Ready Up that they previewed it.
It doesn’t work on the underwater life blast.
Well, Vampiric Master seems to have all right scaling. At 200 Healing Power, it heals for 46. At four-hundred fifty-five, it heals for 50. At 583, 52. I have no other healing power gear to throw on to test, but it actually scales.
Renewing Blast has as base heal of 345 and a Healing Power coefficient of .45. That is stupidly strong for sustained healing.
EDIT: Had to spell out “four-hundred fifty-five” because the numerical version is censored.
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What about having occasional skills that remove stealth, but don’t apply Revealed? Obviously, they would be AoE skills, either ground-targeted or PBAoE.
For example, Stomp on Warriors could be a PBAoE. Corrosive Poison Cloud on Necros could be ground-targeted. Most classes have skills that I think could work for this. Would need to be careful on where they get used, but that’s true of any new capability.
If a skill removes stealth, but does not apply Revealed, the opponent can still jump into stealth again, but it gives the non-stealther a window to either fight back or try to disrupt it again. It also means those hiding in stealth for extended periods would have to pay closer attention to what their opponent was doing in case they got taken out before they were ready. It allows counterplay opportunities that currently do not exist, and the only punishment for the stealther is that their current stealth ends. If they are set up for it, they can stealth again.
Good answer.
Honestly, I feel like pretty much all of the OP condition skills and traits are getting addressed in this patch (now, the anti-condition traits on the other hand…). Only odd one out in my mind is Incindiary Powder which could also use a change to be more predictable. I’d hate to have it tied to particular skills like Dhuumfire, though. That doesn’t work for engineers.
Which is the problem with the 40% global condition duration +/- foods. If they did not exist at that power level we’d likely not hear near as many complaints about condition builds splattering people unless they were built a very specific way. Granted; we’d still hear some from the section that think they should not have to carry a single condition management tool in their build, but whatever, haters gonna hate.
So, how do you figure in the sPvP complaints, which are all done in a no-food setting?
Overall, it’s a nerf. Yes, the damage comes faster, but the amount isn’t changing at all. However, it opens up an opportunity to actually cleanse the Torment before the damage hurts too much.
You can’t predict doom (ds 3) either, it’s an instant fear.
You can predict it, and in fact, many players do. What you can’t do is react to avoid it. It’s similar to thief stealth attacks. You can’t react to avoid them, because you can’t see it ahead of time. What you can do, however, is predict it and time your defense for when you think it will come. If you’re wrong, then you got out-played by someone who baited out your active defense before attempting to hit you.
Doom is far easier than stealth attacks to predict due to the necro needing to turn all black before he can use it and having two cooldowns tied to it.
Necromancer are not really desirable in PvE/PvP/WvW...
in Necromancer
Posted by: Drarnor Kunoram.5180
I’ll be honest, if I were a commander in WvW, an all-necro zerg is a far scarier prospect to fight than any other single-classed zerg IMO.
Necros also have the best zergbreaker builds in the game. Tons of AoE weakness, poison, cripple, and even boonstrip (from Well of Corruption and Lich Form 5) means your zerg just sucks. Chilling Darkness necro popped Plague in your zerg? It makes a massive impact. Multiply it by 3 to 5? You don’t win that fight.
Ferocity won’t fix the meta because the meta is ruled by Condi/CC in PvP.
Ferocity isn’t meant to. Heck, your crit damage isn’t going to change at all in PvP unless you ran Celestial. The Ferocity change will have literally 0 effect on PvP.
And I still have yet to find evidence that this “condi meta” actually exists. I primarily roam in WvW and I still find far more Power build roamers than condition damage ones. In PvP, the top teams have always run one or two condition damage builds ever since launch. There hasn’t been a change in that.
For one, your suggestion makes no sense. Life Siphon is a channeled skill, just like Life Transfer. It’s just single target and heals you instead of PBAoE and restores life force.
Two, Life Siphon may need a small numbers boost, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not supposed to heal half of your health, it’s supposed to be a little kicker, so maybe you can afford that extra second or two before hitting your heal.
Plus, when you say “Please leave negative comments to yourself”, you are saying that you don’t actually want discussion, you want agreement.
No, I am saying that I don’t want NEGATIVE COMMENTS.
There is a difference between being a troll and constructive criticism.
And I didn’t ask for a boost in the heal, read my thread again.
Seems like you skimmed through it and all you read was “necro op, no buffs needed”
Seems like you paid no attention to what I said either. Or my signature.
1. Your only suggestion (make it a channel) was implemented back in alpha. Congrats!
2. Boosting the healing would make it so you might actually gain some health out of it during its channel instead of basically freezing your health bar in PvE, and slowing down its depletion in WvW/PvP.
Let’s peel back those ten paragraphs and consider only three things:
1. 40% duration food
2. Perplexity runes
3. Gear stats that are primary condition damage + two defensive statsIf the argument here is that condition builds need all three of these things to be playable, isn’t that a problem in and of itself? None of these things exist in sPvP, so what’s the argument here, all three are needed to counteract the increased stats power builds have?
I admit that I’m completely biased here. I find most of the condition builds completely boring to play and even more boring to face. Even worse, if you have a build with a little bit of condition pressure, when everyone is forced to run the -condi food and lots of purging, it makes your conditions completely useless. I think this drives the meta to the extremes and ruins build diversity.
As you say, those three things are not existent in PvP. So why, then, do people scream and holler about conditions being OP in PvP? Could it be that they’re just mad because they discovered the hard way you can’t have everything in a build?
But is unifying the game mods really that much work that it can´t be done? With the newer living story patches we had npcs we needed to stomp etc too, Anet is probably slowly moving into this direction. They develop their systems one by one for the living story content and once they´re satisfied with them they start to apply them to the old dungeons one by one.
It starts with reworking every single mob and boss AI and stat-wise in every dungeon/path, then crosses trying to rebalance this mess and finally leads to rework and addition of many quests which are supposed to gate people through the new pve experience.
Did I mention all the bugs this will cause?
Not every mob and boss. Just some of them. A mix between some of the existing mobs and some new ones to replace current ones would be fine.
His list is also too short for Warriors. There’s also:
-Bull’s Charge
-Everything on Rifle except Rifle Butt
-Several Bow Skills
-Rush
There’s probably a couple more but there’s a lot of “can hit, but probably won’t” like Shield Bash. Warrior is probably the most un-MMO class in the game considering it isn’t overly reliant on having a target.
Bull’s Charge, all bow and rifle skills, and Rush can all hit a stealthed character. It’s either a fluke (you were aiming at something past the stealthed dude) or rediculously unlikely (you were firing with no target and hoping), but it is possible.
Stealth =/= immunity. Some classes aren’t as reliant on targeting as others, but many of the target skills you listed can still hit them, and a lot have cc effects.
Wrongo! When I say “completely immune” I mean “THEY CANNOT BE AFFECTED AT ALL IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM” None of those skills I listed can hit stealthed foes, because there is no ground-targeting, splash, melee swing, or projectile. It is 100% impossible for any of those skills to have any effect whatsoever on a stealthed target.
Stealth is an immunity to those 55 skills (and their chains).
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Don’t forget Light fields and whirl/projectile finishers that those groups like using. No traiting needed for those.
I’m not gonna comment on the content, just thought i’d try my luck on this dooling thing. I think dooling = dueling.
Nope, it’s definitely supposed to be cooling. C and D are near each other on the keyboard, after all.
Depends not every one use Qwerty keyboard.
Good point. I’m not familiar with other keyboards. C ad D would still be close, though.
Pretty sure oZii is NA. QWERTY is most likely from him.
I’m not gonna comment on the content, just thought i’d try my luck on this dooling thing. I think dooling = dueling.
Nope, it’s definitely supposed to be cooling. C and D are near each other on the keyboard, after all.
For one, your suggestion makes no sense. Life Siphon is a channeled skill, just like Life Transfer. It’s just single target and heals you instead of PBAoE and restores life force.
Two, Life Siphon may need a small numbers boost, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not supposed to heal half of your health, it’s supposed to be a little kicker, so maybe you can afford that extra second or two before hitting your heal.
Plus, when you say “Please leave negative comments to yourself”, you are saying that you don’t actually want discussion, you want agreement.
I do feel that I should point out that Stealth is, in fact, an immunity.
A stealthed player is completely immune to the following skills:
Elementalist:
Flame Strike
Arc Lightning*
Lightning Strike
Blinding Flash
Impale
Steam
Air Bubble
Rock Anchor
Arcane Blast
Signet of Earth
Signet of Fire
Signet of Water
Discharge Lightning
Grasping Earth
Flame Wave* (from Firey Greatsword)
Engineer:
Analyze
Magnet
Guardian:
Chains of Light
Bane Signet
Signet of Wrath
Mesmer:
Diversion (Shatter)
Spatial Surge*
Confusing Images*
Illusion of Drowning
Arcane Thievery
Mantra of Distraction/Power Lock
Mantra of Pain/Power Spike
Signet of Domination
Polymorph Moa/Tuna
Mind Blast
Necromancer:
Doom
Rending Claws
Ghastly Claws*
Blood Curse/Rending Curse/Putrid Curse
Feast of Corruption
Life Siphon*
Dark Pact
Spinal Shivers
Sinking Tomb
Summon Blood Fiend
Signet of Vampirism
Blood is Power
Corrupt Boon
Plague Signet
Signet of Spite
Life Leech
Fear
Feeding Frenzy
Death Curse
Ranger:
Hunter’s Call
“Sic ’Em”
Thief:
Steal
Infiltrator’s Strike
Infiltrator’s Signet
Warrior:
“On My Mark”
*: If the cast activated before the target entered stealth, it will continue to hit anyway. If the target enters stealth before the skill is activated, they are immune.
The above list is skills that cannot affect a stealthed target. Period. I did not include possible Ranger pet skills. I also did not include illusion generating skills, as it is theoretically possible for those to affect a stealthed target, such as would be the case with a Sword clone having cleave. Likewise, skills that require a target, but do have an AoE effect were left out.
6-10K involves vulnerability on the target and some Might on yourself, but it’s actually not hard to manage. I’ve managed 6k Life Blasts in PvE in Knight’s gear (no special buffs on myself or debuffs on the target, though), so Zerker should easily hit that even in WvW.
No, it would not have. See point #3. Using a different ratio would have resulted in the armor going over budget instead.
And as for incentivizing people to wear all zerker gear, that’s intentional. If you want that high damage output, you need to have a high investment in it. No more getting the best of both worlds. They wanted to hurt those people only getting the accessories.
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Trying to kill anyone who refuses to stay and fight as a power spec necro against that combo is pretty futile as well thanks to how slow you are. You have one gap closer that often will not hit in broken terrain (Dark Path). Most of your tools to keep someone engaged are conditions.
So, basically necros in general if the enemy doesn’t want to fight to the death (the necro is there until the end regardless)
Speaking from a power ranger’s perspective, I can easily deal with conditions. In a single build I run:
18k HP
EB
SoR
Healing Spring
Melandru Runes
LemongrassAs you have alluded to however, the problem with this is that I don’t have enough damage to kill all other classes. In my case it is Guardians and Warriors. Every other class is fine but I don’t have the raw damage to beat the heavies. Obviously condition classes don’t have this problem.
I don’t see this as a problem with conditions necessarily, its a problem with power builds.
I see this actually as evidence of balance. You specced a bit more into dealing with conditions, so you have to lose out somewhere. In your case, it was damage that suffered. You still do all right against everyone else, but high armor targets are a weakness for you.
Every build has, and should have, weaknesses (though some have more than others).
Yeh that’s a fair point. I guess is there anyone in this scenario who is not balanced – are their classes who cant kill anyone if they run Melandru+Lemongrass…?
Dire/Rabid necros have a pretty tough time. I can’t say I’m familiar enough with any other condi builds to comment with them, though.